Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) by NVIDIA? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) scores 13.8 points higher (22.9 vs 9.1) but costs 40× as much to run the benchmark ($596 vs $14.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 22.9 | +151.6% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 2.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $596.33 | +3899.5% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 40× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.71s | 15.29s | −76.0% Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B… is 76.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.60 / $2.70 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 3B: 151.6% more intelligence, 3899.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 76.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Granite 4.2 3BNemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill